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Jin zhong entered Xi’an Jiaotong University in 1989.He studied Abroad in Japan from 1995 to 2006, researching Japanese classical literature and comparative studies in Japanese and Chinese literature. He graduated and received his Ph.D from Tokyo University of Foreign Studies in 2006. He is currently a Professor at the Japanese Department of the School Of International Studies at Xi’an Jiaotong University. His research focuses on Japanese classical literature, comparative studies in Japanese and Chinese literature, the translation of Japanese poetry.

Poems on “Waiting for Love” at Dusk―Focusing on the Contrast with Chinese Keien Shi―

PROSEEDINGS OF THE 31th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON JAPANESE LITERATURE(2008)

Abstract of Ph.D Thesis

Poetics of “evening twilight” in Japanese classical waka poetry:

A study in comparative literature based on the Hachidaishū

JinZhong

“Evening twilight” is a universal theme found among literary works around the world. In Japan, this theme has been evoked since the Man’yōshū, and since the Middle Ages “evening twilight in Autumn” has come to be established as part of the aesthetic sense of the Japanese.

In this dissertation, the use of “evening twilight” is examined in the poems found in the so-called Hachidaishū (eight waka anthologies collected by Japanese Imperial command, namely the Kokinshū, Gosenshū, Shūishū, Go-Shūishū, Kinyōshū, Shikashū, Sensaishū and Shin-Kokinshū), which are known to be typical examples of classical waka poetry. The poems are also compared and contrasted with those in the Man’yōshū.

It was found that the content of most “evening twilight” poems were centred around five themes: scenic sketch poems which describe “evening twilight” as part of nature, travel poems which sing of the melancholy gathering around the traveller at twilight, love poems which deal with the urges of love abounding at twilight and love encounters at twilight, season’s end poems that lament the passing of a season as emotions gather at twilight, and poems on the decay and wane of life which associate twilight with ageing and death.

This dissertation examines each of the above themes in detail, utilising the perspective of Sino-Japanese comparative literature studies.

Chapter One examines the twilight travel poems and links them to the problem of supplemental poems found in the Kiryo volume of Shin-Kokinshū. Chapter Two looks at twilight love poems according to each of their themes. In Chapter Three, twilight season’s end poems are examined as part of the inquiry by season’s end poems into temporal consciousness. Chapter Four looks at the genesis and range of expressions presented by twilight poems on the decay and wane of life. Chapter Five examines twilight scenic sketch poems as part of an inquiry into the origins of the lonely pathos embodied in the theme of “evening twilight in Autumn”.

Poems about “evening twilight in Autumn” have been found in poems dating from Go-Shūishū, andthese strikingly embody a sense of lonely pathos. However, when one examines historical changes in “evening twilight poems”, one discovers that while the lonely pathos of “evening twilight” was not really evoked in Man’yōshū, in Hachidaishū “evening twilight” began to be seen as something that drew out a sense of lonely pathos in and of itself.

This change is due to the introduction and acceptance of Chinese poetry and Buddhist writings. We conclude that the origins of the lonely pathos embodied in the theme of “evening twilight in Autumn” can be dated back to the Sandaishū (namely Kokinshū, Gosenshū and Shūishū) in the period after the Man’yōshū and up to the period of the Go-Shūishū.

Lastly, compared to Chinese literature, the feelings of pathos and transiency are much more acutely felt in “evening twilight poems”. This is a reflection of the special qualities of waka literature.